Newark Legacy Charter School Now Registering Kindergarteners & First Graders

Newark Legacy Charter School is launching with an ambitious goal: preparing each and every one of its students for the state and nation's most prestigious college-preparatory high schools.

PARENTS: Newark Legacy is currently registering students for its Kindergarten and First Grade classes in 2010. A lottery is currently scheduled for JANUARY 15, 2010. Parents are strongly encouraged to register early to ensure that you get a space in the lottery.

CONTACT: To register, contact school founder and executive director Paula White-Bradley at (973) 932-6532, or by email at info@newarklegacy.org

Newark Legacy is a new open-enrollment, tuition-free, public charter elementary school that will serve Newark's families with students in Kindergarten to Grade 8. The school was just recently approved for operation by the New Jersey Department of Education.

The school will officially open on August 23, 2010, with 120 Kindergarten and First Grade students, and will add one grade each successive school year until it reaches Grade 8.

Newark Legacy Charter School's mission is to provide its students with the scholarship, discipline and character necessary for them to gain entry to, succeed in, and graduate from demanding college preparatory high schools. Using a highly structured, literacy-rich environment, the school intends to produce the college graduates that will lead the city, state, and nation to conquer the challenges of the 21st Century.

The school's Lead Founder and Executive Director is Paula White-Bradley. A graduate of Columbia's Teachers College and Building Excellent Schools Fellow with several years of public school teaching experience, White-Bradley speaks with a sense of urgency when discussing the school's mission and its role in the city of Newark.

"The City of Newark faces serious academic challenges: too few of our students enter high school prepared to succeed in a college preparatory curriculum, and even fewer go on to enter and graduate from college," she said. "These statistics threaten to place a chokehold on the growth and development of our city," White-Bradley added.

"However, there are several beacons of light that are lending Newark a national reputation as an incubator for public education reform. These exemplary schools remind us that demographics need not determine destiny," White-Bradley said. "Newark Legacy will join these schools in proving that all students--regardless of race or socio-economic background--can achieve when schools take a no-excuses approach to achieving educational excellence," she said.

White-Bradley sees Newark Legacy's educational approach as one that is capable of closing the achievement gap for low-income students. "By keeping a laser-like focus on hiring and developing only the best teachers, providing rigorous literacy instruction, as well as more time in the classroom, Newark Legacy will educate our scholars to reach the highest levels," she said.

The school will structure the curriculum around its hallmark Oral Literacy Enrichment Program which emphasizes literacy instruction through plays, recitation, speech and debate, as well as mock trial competitions. Daily homework assignments, individualized tutoring, and Saturday excursions to colleges, museums and historical landmarks will also be mainstays of the program. White-Bradley reports that the school has already secured the support of many community leaders, concerned citizens and prospective parents.

The Building Excellent Schools Fellowship, of which White-Bradley is a graduate, is a highly selective school creation program that provides rigorous, year-long training in best practices of charter school leadership, including the areas of fiscal management, board development and instructional design. Fellows visit high performing urban charter schools and complete a residency at a high performing urban charter school. Fellows also receive ongoing support after the school opens. Building Excellent Schools believes that dramatic student achievement in urban public schools can only be possible within a highly structured, no excuses, results-oriented school culture in which leadership drives, communicates, and supports instructional expectations in every class, every day.

For information about registering students for the available Kindergarten and First Grade spaces, contact Ms. White Bradley by phone at (973) 932-6532, by email at pwbradley@newarklegacy.org or by logging on to newarklegacy.org.